Saturday, December 01, 2018

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Stephanie Kelton, Andres Bernal and Greg Carlock highlight how a Green New Deal is entirely affordable south of the border. And Clayton Thomas-Muller examines what we could demand in a Canadian equivalent:

(I)f we’re going to do what the science says we need
to do and stop expanding fossil fuels, we need a plan to transition to
100 per cent renewables within the two decades. For that, we need the
federal government to step up and guarantee that every single worker,
family and community impacted by this transition will be supported. The
best way to do that is to borrow from the Green New Deal and implement a
federal job guarantee that tells every single person in Canada that
they don’t have to choose between putting food on the table and ensuring
our children inherit a liveable planet. This kind of climate plan would ensure that
Indigenous peoples have the ability to continue to hunt, fish, gather,
practice ceremony and build sustainable economies on an adequate land
base and it would support the restoration of lands despoiled by the
fossil fuel economy. Put another way, a climate plan built on this basis
could make good on so many politicians’ hollow promises around the
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the
ninety-four calls to action in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
report.

This doesn’t have to be a pipe dream. In the United
States, they’re calling it a Green New Deal, but I have a simpler name
for it here in Canada – The Good Work Guarantee.

It’s called the Good Work Guarantee because that’s
exactly what it is, a guaranteed good job for workers connected at the
hip to a climate policy that moves Canada off of fossil fuels and
respects Indigenous rights. And, despite what our political leaders tell
us, we have every reason to believe that this kind of bold policy is
possible here in Canada.

- Meanwhile, Christo Aivalis points out the important lessons from GM's abandonment of Oshawa - including the pitfalls of depending on the corporate sector alone for economic development.

- Abdi Latif Dahir discusses new research into the effect of cash transfers in alleviating poverty with substantially no side effects. And Matt Bruenig points out how a child allowance would reduce both the breadth and depth of poverty in the U.S.

- Finally, Karin Larsen reports on the effect of Vancouver's empty homes tax, which has raised tens of millions of dollars with little impact on housing availability.